Guthrie hesitated for only a split second. “Yes, they are my daughters.”
“Good, you get one point. Now, tell me their names.”
“Val and Connie.”
“Uh-huh. Which is which? No…let me guess. That one looks like a Connie,” he said, nodding to Connie. “She looks like every Connie I’ve ever known. Prissy name, don’t you think?”
Guthrie didn’t think he was supposed to answer that question, so he kept his jaw clamped shut.
“I guess that means you’re Val?” Val nodded. “I’m sorry,” Ruger said, cupping a hand to his ear. “Didn’t catch that.”
“Y…yes. My name is Val Guthrie.”
“Ah, splendid.” Ruger looked as pleased as if Val had just won a spelling bee. “Now, ladies, hold up your hands. Mm-hm. No wedding ring on your hand, Val. Too bad. Shouldn’t let fruits like yours spoil on the vine. But… ooo, look at that, Connie’s got a nice fat gold band. Well, where is Mr. Reed?”
“What?” Connie asked, confused.
“Your husband. Don’t you ever watch TV Land? Where is he?”
Connie said nothing, looking too scared to even open her mouth beyond the permanent shocked O in which it was set.
“Connie,” Ruger chided, “you’re forgetting the rules.”
“He’s not home,” said Guthrie.
Ruger smiled, stood, walked over to the couch, and looked down at Guthrie. With another demonstration of his terrible speed he punched the old man in the face. Guthrie’s head rocked back as blood erupted from his torn eyebrow. It poured down his face in a shocking flood of brilliant red. Guthrie clamped his hands to his face, and Val seized him protectively in her arms, trying to stanch the flow of blood. Connie recoiled in horror and squeezed herself farther into the corner of the couch.
Ruger stood over them, looking down at them with all of the reptilian humor momentarily gone from his face. “Listen to me, you old fuck. If I ask you a question, you may answer. If I ask anyone else a question, shut the fuck up. Am I clear?”
Guthrie nodded slowly, his eyes blazing with pain and fury.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, goddamn it!” Guthrie snarled, and tensed for another blow. Ruger just let his smile return and backed up until he found the rocker and lowered himself into it.
“Okay then. Let’s try this again.”
Guthrie’s face was painted red and blood ran from between his fingers and down his forearms.
“Now, Connie. Where is your husband?”
Connie glanced at the blood still streaming down Guthrie’s face and in a choked, little girl voice said, “Mark went to a meeting after work.”
“A meeting of what?”
“Rotary Club.”
Ruger burst out laughing. “Oh man! That is just too precious! Fucking Rotary Club, and Donna-frigging-Reed to come home to. Tell me, Miss Perfect, does he drive a station wagon, too?”
“How did you know…?”
Laughter spewed out again. “American made?”
“Yes…a Ford.”
Ruger actually pounded the butt of the pistol on his thigh as he laughed. Val and her father exchanged a very brief glance; Connie just frowned in uncertain confusion and fear. Eventually Ruger sobered. “Okay, Mr. Guthrie, your turn again. How’s the face?”
“It’s fine,” Guthrie said coldly.
“Looks to me like it hurts like a bitch. Whatever. Okay, now, does anyone else live here besides Donna Reed and her husband, Val the Spinster, and your own self? Is there a Mrs. Old Lady Guthrie?”
“It’s just us.”
“What about farm hands? You can’t work this big old place by yourselves.”
“We have a few regular hands, and we have some day labor come in.”
“Wetbacks?”
“Some migrant workers, a few local boys.”
“Any of them getting any from Val over there?”
Guthrie ground his teeth and tried to find some kind of answer that would not result in a beating or a bullet, but Karl waved the question away. “Forget it. Trick question. What I meant to say, is there anyone else who’s likely to come sniffing around after her tonight?”
Val tensed, her fingers digging in to her father’s skin. “No,” she heard her dad say.
“What, no boyfriends?” Ruger asked Val.
“He lives in town,” said Connie, and then clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes growing as wide as saucers as she realized she had spoken out of turn. With a weary sigh, Karl stood up and walked over to her.
“No, please don’t!” Guthrie said.
“Let her alone!” pleaded Val.
Ruger looked at them for a moment, considering. “She broke the rules. Loss of points. What can I do?”
“She’s just scared. She didn’t mean anything,” Val protested, half rising.
Ruger swung the gun around so fast it became a silvery blur. The edge of the barrel caught Val across the forehead just below the hairline and knocked her back against the armrest. Her father began lunging at Ruger, but the man was so frighteningly quick; Ruger twisted and drove his gun-hand elbow into Guthrie’s solar plexus as the old man struggled to stand. All the air and fight went out of Guthrie, and he collapsed against the dazed and bleeding Val. The two of them huddled in a bloody and motionless heap.
Ruger gave a world-weary sigh. “I can see this is going to be a long night after all, folks. Oh well, shit happens, huh?” As his irrepressible smile crept back onto his lips, he turned to Connie, who was so terrified that she was not even breathing. Both of her hands beat the air in front her, warding off imagined blows. Ruger bent down toward her and batted her hands out of the way. Connie squeezed her eyes shut and turned as far away as she could, her whole face twisted in expectation of the pain. Ruger kept leaning forward until his lips were only a couple of inches away from her face. He did not touch her, not so much as a hair on her head. Instead, he said in a sharp voice: “Boo!”
Connie screamed and fainted.
Chapter 10
Tow-Truck Eddie moved through the rooms of his house as if he were exploring a marvelous new country. Everything he looked at appeared fresh and mysterious and wonderful. He stood for a time in the dining room, listening to the old grandfather clock ticking out the seconds of his new existence, and he realized that with each passing moment new universes were being created and old suns were dying glorious deaths. All for him.
In the kitchen, he took tomatoes and crushed them in his strong fingers, and understood the message that they had always tried to tell him about the truths hidden in living blood; how could he have missed the meaning of this parable for so long? He licked the pulp from his hands and marveled in the taste, so like blood.
Upstairs in his bedroom, he picked up a five-pound plate from his weight set and pressed the flat side of it against his cheek, delighting in the coolness and roughness of the hard black iron.
Down in the laundry room, he stripped out of his soiled clothes and crammed them into his tiny washing machine. He poured a precise capful of Wisk over them and washed them in cold water. Naked, he inspected his body, astounded at the fineness of his skin, at the textural differences between the flesh of his stomach and that on the inside of each wrist; at the difference in sensation between the cool air of the cellar on his thighs and on his face. He inspected his flaccid penis and wondered what kind of seed it would dispense, now that he had become a true son of God. Would his children share his power? Would the act of inseminating a woman likewise bestow grace
